Originally Posted by
psells
Andy Serkis is a genius. Anyone who can translate Gollum's paranoid schizophrenia and Kong's empathy through motion capture is nothing less. Ceasar in Rise of the Planet of the Apes takes Serkis' art to a new level, technically and artistically. The apes are apes, not actors in ill-fitting masks. Ceasar's personality and full range of emotion are completely believable.
The movie is good sci-fi. I've been a fan of the series since reading Pierre Boule's Monkey Planet as a kid and seeing all five of the original movies in the theatre, but none of them were anywhere close to good sci-fi, even for their time. This movie has a plausible premise to the extent that there is very little need to suspend disbelief.
Good supporting characters, especially John Lithgow and Freida Pinto (I could look at her all day), help move the story along. One uneven performance due to poor casting was obvious but did little damage. I counted two allusions to the original, one blatant and one subtle, both worth a chuckle.
The sequel is firmly set up, and now that I think of it there is a third very subtle throw to the original film that helps put the pieces in place. We can expect the next edition to have a more familiar story line.